Abstract - Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization PAS

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Samara (Russia; region)
Sannikov Land was one of the greatest myths of Arctic geography, probably seen for the first time in the 17th century and remaining fascinating to this day. Convinctions as to the existence of this area resulted in the organisation of various expeditions of discovery. Among these efforts, the one mounted on the greatest scale with a view to Sannikov Land finally being discovered was the 1901-1902 expedition of Eduard Toll.This ended tragically for the explorer himself, while leaving the question of the existence of Sannikow Land unresolved. An answer (in the negative) finally came with systematic cartographic study carried out in Soviet Russia. However, the non-existence ofSannikov Land from the point of view of geography has not prevented it from winning a permanent position for itself in pop culture, through its inspiration of books, films and computer games.
Saratov (Russia; region)
Scientific collaboration between Polish and Romanian geographers is based on a very good andl ong tradition. It was long developed between human and physical geographers alike. The common bilateral projects had in view aspects related to the impact of natural and human process on the planning of mountain and hilly areas, the social-economic transformations in the Romanian and Polish suburban zones, the regional development in Central and Eastern Europe, the socio-economic development of rural areas in Poland and Romania. The last bilateral project on Internal peripheries in Polish and Romanian regions – role of endogenous and exogenous factors in their development processes, coordinated by Prof. Konrad Czapiewski from the Polish side, had as main research findings identifying common solutions serving the practical problems connected with the economic and social development of the internal peripheries in both countries. <br>
Scientific studies do much to embrace the issue of social activity among immigrants, as well as their participation in projects of various types, in both institutional and non-institutional dimensions. Nevertheless, research into the activity of the Polish community in German cities has only rarely been undertaken. In this context, the studies carried out by the authors are of importance as they make clear an intensification of social activity among Polish immigrants in Berlin and Hamburg. An influx of new migrants, attracted to Germany not only by relevant economic motivations, but also by a perceived need for of self-development and greater acquaintanceship with new communities in place, tends to allow German institutions to take more interest in immigrant groups, while also sustaining activity within newly-created networks of immigrant organisations. The consequences of all that are for the social and cultural activity engaged in within the Polish community in the cities to become more and more visible and diverse. Although it is relatively new for these behaviours to assume such a large scale, the observed intensity and spatial scope may sustain the conclusion that even the near-future will bring a significant increase in visibility for the Polish community vis-à-vis both German citizens and immigrant groups. Specifically, the work detailed in the present paper has mainly sought to identify socio- cultural activity among the Polish migrants present in both Berlin and Hamburg. This involved the authors in efforts to ascertain: (1) factors determining the socio-cultural activity of Polish communities in the cities studied; (2) any noticeable differences between Berlin and Hamburg when it comes to the social activity undertaken by Polish migrants; (3) the directions of development that characterise the institutional and non-institutional activity of the Polish community present in the cities in question (which were selected in line with the high concentrations of Polish communities in both, as well as differences in periods of influx and of a socio-cultural and economic nature). <br>
Sea space has been undergoing a profound transformation. Although it retains its inspirational function in arts, literature and philosophy, it has been gaining new anthropogenic dimensions in economics and urban planning as a source of satisfying human needs i.e. the provision of harmony, beauty, off-shore energy, and biotech substances. Therefore, in this paper marine space is analyzed from a multidimensional perspective of urban planning, economics, and literature. Maritime space has been a subject of literature from its inception. Without attempting to give an overview of the vast topic, the paper discusses the pronounced presence of sea space in the earliest Western literary sources, such as the Bible and Anglo-Saxon poetry. As a striking case study, Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick is analyzed with its complex, dynamic notion of maritime space. Aditionally, the importance of the shore as locus amoenus in a short story by the contemporary writer Maxim D. Shrayer is examined. This notion of locus amoenus is also present in the research related to urban planning. Maritime space attracts people to locate nearby. Development is created as a response to these demands. Both urban planning and economics underline, however, a need of sustainable development of this space. This is crucial in order to secure its positive influence on human well-being in the long run. The three disciplines also point out that maritime space remains in the process of continuous creation and re-development in course of adding new functional and axiological ties between humans and the seas and oceans. Thus, nowadays maritime space covers both sea and terrestrial gateways servicing the sea and the key constituting factor is provided by human beings (homo maritimus) through their economic, social or emotional bond to the sea.
Seasonal workers are increasingly being used globally to provide a short-term workforce, filling positions in the labour market that are often difficult, dirty and shunned by native born workers. Seasonal schemes are promoted in typically economic terms, offering a triple win where the host society gains from flexible labour; the sending country benefits from remittances and skill transfers; and migrants themselves gain from access to the labour market. However, they have been found to support the uneven economic participation of workers in global production processes and they typically marginalise workers socially. Drawing from examples elsewhere and using Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional perspective of social justice (2005), this article examines the prospect for developing socially just seasonal work programmes. It is logical that most societies seek to promote seasonal worker schemes that allow workers to be treated according to the rules of justice. And yet, research has shown the exploitation of many different types of migrant workers. Following Fraser, the article asks to what extent recognition, redistribution and representation can be achieved through seasonal worker schemes? It identifies key issues for consideration if social justice is to be upheld.
Second homes used for recreation are widespread, in Russia they are located mainly in the suburbs. Our research is aimed at contributing to the debate on environmental impact of second homes. We focus on the issue of household waste management drawing empirical evidence from Moscow oblast’. The paper proposes a spatial analysis of remote sensing data concerning the number and localization of illegal landfills and tests the spatial relation between illegal landfills and second home settlements. The significant number of identified illegal landfills and their location reflect the inefficiency of region’s waste management system and population’s low environmental awareness.
Self-catering accommodation is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism market in Europe. The term self-catering accommodation concerns a category that is characterized primarily in that the tourists staying in these facilities provide and prepare meals for themselves. This type of accommodation, discussed in the article, is particu-larly important for rural development. Its significance should be seen in the use of local natural and cultural resources. The existence of this type of accommodation also offers great opportunities for developing additional services, effectively influencing employ-ment and local development. This may contribute to the use of local products, resources, manpower, increase creativity and even protect natural and cultural heritage (especially when it is the basis for attracting tourists). Both the owners of accommodation facilities as well as local and regional authorities seriously consider this type of tourist accom-modation and see it as an opportunity for economic development. Increasingly, self-catering accommodation is treated as a basis for the develop-ment of tourism products by using local values, interests and additional services, partic-ularly involving tourists (e.g. adventure, sport) and cultural values of the area (e.g. cui-sine, traditions). Additional services as well as the whole package of tourism products are created. Service packages obviously concern local attractions and areas of speciali-zation (e.g., hiking, biking, culture and heritage, fishing, golf, bird watching), although some of them are common and can be successfully applied regardless of the location (e.g. cleaning, babysitting, cooking courses).
Several potential Polish locations for the occurrence of fossil pingos were determined on the basis of analyses of a digital terrain model. Subsequent field reconnaissance connected with drilling into the geological structure, confirmed that one form located NW of Gdańsk, was indeed a fossil pingo. The aforementioned forms occur in a moraine plateau area related to the last ice-sheet retreat towards the Gardno phase moraine. This surface of the plateau is noticeably inclined south-north, at elevations of between 170 and 110 metres. It in fact proved possible to identify more than 80 very well-developed fossil pingos in the area investigated, with each found to consist of a central depression of average diameter 60‒80 m, as surrounded by a rampart 3–7 m high. By drilling into the central parts of the fossil pingos, we found them to be filled with organic sediments up to 6 or 7 m deep. The bottom layer of infill has carbonate and mineral-carbonate gyttjas up to 2 m thick. These are overlain by a peat layer up to 4 m thick, while these organic sediments are underlain by gley till sand. The ramparts are of sandy till frequently intercalated with silty sand. The established sequence of infilling of the central parts of the fossil pingos indicates that, in the immediate aftermath of ice-core melting, these played host to small ponds in which the accumulation of gyttja was able to take place. The gradual accumulation of lake-bottom sediments resulted in a shallowing of the ponds and the development of peat bogs. The morphological image of the above forms and initial drilling in the studied area suggest an association between their genesis and the presence of an ice-cored mound of the pingo type, experiencing subsequent degradation in the direction of the current, fossil pingo, form. Besides the classical, literal morphology of these forms, a decisive argument for acceptance of the above concept is provided by rampart lithology indicating how essential slow processes were in their accumulation. The nature and thickness of the organic infilling in the central part of a post-pingo prove equally important, suggesting an extended period of lake and peat-bog accumulation, probably lasting for the entire Holocene. The aforementioned arguments allow for the precluding of any origin linked with direct human activity (ground construction, bomb craters). The high density and close proximity and morphological similarity of the forms are likewise inimical to an identification as craters caused by above-ground meteorite explosions. Likewise, comparative analysis of the studied forms and kettle holes (usually larger irregularly-shaped larger forms of varied bottom topography) fails to indicate that the ring forms under study here have somehow arisen through the melting of buried dead ice. Analysis of deep boreholes made previously may support a geological structure of the analysed area consisting of a sand layer over 90 metres thick covered by a discontinuous till moraine several metres thick. The thick sand layer in question consists of differently-aged glaciofluvial sediments. This is a hydrogeological window connecting three main Quaternary aquifers and offering a perfect location for the ascension of groundwater. In conditions of developing discontinuous permafrost, this movement led to the creation of pingo forms in open systems on the surface. It is clear that investigation work is not currently at a stage allowing for about as to age to be made, or all details regarding evolution provided. However, the results of planned geomorphological, hydrogeological and geochronological studies should provide for both the recognition and detailed definition of the forms, thereby prompting discussion as to the evolution of permafrost during the late Weichselian transgression and recession in Central Europe.
Silence and a good acoustic climate are important in every environment where human beings live (at home or the place of work, in the streets, on transport, etc.). Special attention needs to be paid to health resorts at which patients come to regenerate their health. However, the acoustic climate of spas is under the great impact of noise generated by local transport, neighbours, bars and restaurants, as well as by other communal sources. According to the legislative Act of the Ministry of Environment (the Dziennik Ustaw Official Journal of Laws of 2012, item 1109) in the core area of a health resort (the so-called zone A), the level of noise level cannot exceed 45 dB during daytime and 40 dB during night hours. In places close to roads the limits are slightly higher, at 50 and 45 dB respectively. These limits are very restrictive. However, we must remember that noise is very destructive and can involve many health disturbances; and health resorts are places in which sick and aged people come to improve their health status and to regenerate organisms. In spite of the great importance of an appropriate acoustic climate noise measurements are undertaken periodically and not monitored by public institutions. Acoustic climate studies are usually carried out by research institutes (e.g. the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization of the Polish Academy of Sciences) every ten years, as a part of investigations to assess the quality of climatic conditions in health resorts. The aim of the paper is a general assessment of the acoustic climate in Polish health resorts and of trends as regards possible changes over the last 10 years (2009–2019) in 20 spas located in different bioclimatic regions of Poland. More detailed analysis is done for 2 coastal resorts (Świnoujście and Kołobrzeg). There are analysed factors influencing the acoustic climate and the effectiveness of actions undertaken by local authorities to reduce noise levels. Attention is paid to the spatial distribution of resort objects (sanatoria, hospitals etc.), the organisation of local transport, and the quality of roads and of the neighbourhood of cities in which tourist and administrative functions are pursued. As the most important factors influencing the acoustic climate are transport and activity of a multifunctional nature (with health-resort and tourist functions having contrasting expectations).
Since 1990, many Chinese immigrants have come to Romania. These Chinese persons are full time involved in the profitable wholesale and retail trade activities; they have families and children, cared for by Romanian nannies. The study is focused on the particularities of an intercultural dialogue, unique and recenlty highlighted in the Romanian society: between the Romanian nannies and Chinese children, located in a representative urban area for the Chinese minority. The aim of paper is to analyses how two cultures have interacted for the purpose of child care, focusing on the ways in which the life, experiences, attitudes and opportunities of Chinese children are socially and spatially shaped, influenced and structured by cultural features of the Romanian nannies.
Since 1990, Polish municipalities have exercised planning power in terms of deciding on the ways of their economic and spatial development. Results of dynamic and sometimes uncontrolled, spontaneous development processes cross the borders of municipalities bringing problems, that can not be addressed, and solved by one municipality. Polish legislation provides legal basis for cooperation of municipalities: they may establish common goals’ unions and associations in order to deal with problems that are important for more than one municipality. However, experience of the last several years proves that cooperation among municipalities is not an easy task. It creates problems especially within functional urban areas, including metropolitan ones. In this paper, the issue of cooperation among municipalities from the Warsaw Metropolitan Area (WMA) is addressed using the perspective of networking and formulation of common development policy.
Since 1991, the observed parliamentary elections in Poland have been characterized by great spatial diversity in terms of support for individual political options. Among these options, it is possible to distinguish the right and the elitarian groupings deriving from the 1980’s opposition to the communist authorities, as well as the peasant and left camps to a large extent based around circles linked with the former system. The aforementioned options form two axes of division: an ideological one (left and right), and a socio-economic one (the peasant and elitarian camps). In the five investigated parliamentary elections (of 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2007), it was mostly the peasant option and, to a lesser degree, the right-of-centre and left-of-centre parties that enjoyed widespread support from the rural population, with the elitarians only receiving much more limited backing. In general terms, the population from east-central Poland showed a preference for the peasant option; inhabitants living in the south and partly in the north (the Podlasie and Kaszuby regions) opted for the right, while western Poland supported the left. Among factors responsible for electoral behaviour, the population’s socio-professional profile and historical and cultural conditioning as broadly conceived are of primary significance. Differentiation of these factors has been shaped down the centuries. The period of the Partitions, which took place at a time of fundamental socio-economic transformation related to the transition from the agrarian to the industrial era, was of particular importance. Also crucial was the post-war shift in Poland’s borders, and the ensuing population migration; as well as changes in the system of ownership. The electoral behaviour of some regional groups forming distinct “islands” make it difficult to offer an unequivocal assessment of the major factors influencing electoral preferences. Nevertheless, the studies carried out indicate that there are clear connections between these factors, and that these relations are much stronger in rural areas than in towns or cities. The traditional forms of ownership (including individual farms) are conducive to the maintenance of traditional social structures, thus supporting cultural traditionalism. The profound economic transformations characteristic of Prussian industrialization, subsequently strengthened by the system under the Polish People’s Republic (nationalised agriculture) proved conducive to the erosion of traditional peasant culture.
Since 1999, the set of 16 voivodeships in Poland has not changed (despite constant criticism of the administrative reform of that time). Among the results of this situation is the development of the excluded areas, often concentrated around cities of regional importance and (theoretically) with similar potential to the smallest voivodeships’ capitals. The aim of this article is to identify how the current administrative division into voivodeships is perceived by those who do not have the opportunity to compare it with the division in force before the last reform – young people from secondary schools. The survey was carried out in ten cities: six centres which, according to various concepts, can become the capitals of new voivodeships in the future (Częstochowa, Kalisz, Koszalin, Płock, Radom, Słupsk) and four capitals with a potential similar to these cities (Gorzów Wielkopolski, Kielce, Toruń, Zielona Góra). The results show that young people from non-voivodeship cities more often than their peers from voivodeship cities choose the administrative function as the most important for a regional capital. In turn, students from schools in voivodeship capitals more strongly emphasize the need for the capital to also perform cultural, educational and religious functions. Moreover, a relationship was identified between the city's general provision of services and the opinion of young people – the more facilities and services there were in a given centre, the more often it was marked in surveys as a "regional capital". However, the occurrence of the so-called "inferiority complex" towards the voivodeship capitals’ inhabitants and the relationship between the city's provision of specific types of facilities and the functions that, according to young people, the regional capital should perform, were not confirmed. <br>
Since 2014, there has been a rapid development of the network of hiking trails in the Sowie Mountains, being part of the processes taking place in various parts of the Sudeten Mountains, especially in the Central Sudeten. These changes were analysed using i.a. graph analysis. The changes in the degree of development and coherence of the hiking trail network after World War II were determined and the reasons for marking new routes were examined, taking into account the tourist attractiveness of the area and the role these sections play in the network. The length of hiking trails in the Sowie Mountains in 2022 compared to 2005 almost doubled, with an approximate threefold increase in the number of nodes and sections between them. As a result the coherence of the network slightly decreased, but the possibilities of organising trips have clearly improved. There are many positive aspects of the development of the trail network in the Sowie Mountains. The new routes are related to the sightseeing values, they refer to the location of public transport stops, but also parking lots at the foot of the mountains and at the passes. There is a clear tendency to reduce the share of the asphalt surface.
Since the beginning of political transformation in Poland, rural tourism was perceived as a versatile means for improving the economic situation of rural areas. It became a subject of excessive interest of politicians, scholars, various activists and the media. The aim of this article is to show the development and functioning of institutional and organizational environment over rural tourism in Poland. At first, development of rural tourism in Poland is presented, followed by the formation of a national and then a local support system. The multidimensional support for rural tourism and the accompanying enthusiasm for it allow for making a statement that tourism became “an apple of the eye” of the rural transformation process in Poland.
Since the early 1900s, Mexico’s northern border towns became important tourism destinations, receiving more foreign tourists than any other areas of Mexico. Historically, postcards followed the development of tourism in the borderlands, depicting unique border-oriented tourismscapes and life in general, and establishing an iconic image of the border as a rowdy, promiscuous and decadent location where Americans could spend their holidays abroad and participate in tourisms of vice. Until the 2000s, tourism in the US-Mexico border zone was overwhelmingly leisure oriented, and the proliferation of postcards illustrated that fact. Today, there are few postcards left and the ones that do remain are less focused on the border itself, as they once were; instead, they focus on the broader community with less emphasis on the borderline. Changes in border tourism from leisure pursuits to medical tourism and alcohol consumption, growing security concerns, and the proliferation of mobile phones and social media have almost entirely eliminated postcard use as a souvenir and marker of regional tourism identity in the US-Mexico borderlands.
Small towns’ functions are exposed to pressure stemming from globalization and metropolitan development. In North-East Poland, the study area, they are at the same time affected by the restructuring of rural economy. As in other peripheral regions in Europe, they are subject to de-population trends. The analysis of socioeconomic functions performed by small towns reveals functional polarization – a division line between local service centers and those towns additionally performing specialized functions. Whereas some towns succeed in sustaining, or attracting, often niche type industrial and service activities, others remain to rely upon the provision of private and public services for the surrounding rural places. By referring to R. Camagni’s conceptualization of territorial competitiveness, the role of selected territorial capital components – local entrepreneurship, social capital and local leadership is identified in the observed development of socio-economic functions of supra-local market range. The findings reveal the focusing, by the successful local firms upon the specificity of market offer, its linking with local tradition, skills, and natural resources. On the conceptual side, at a town level, they indicate the importance of mutual interlocking of individual endogenous factors in the development and the sustenance of competitive functions.
Smart cities have spawned a global discourse, which is, however, dominated by notions and theories originating from major metropolis regions in the Global North/West, as well as by quantitative approaches. Drawing on case studies from Hungary, this paper aims to reveal how place-specific factors influence smart-city development and to discover the characteristics of this development in the Hungarian context. For this purpose, qualitative research methods, namely a content analysis of policy documents and semi-structured expert interviews, were used. Based on the results, we distinguished four development paths: representative, stalled, organizational model, and focused smart city. Findings broaden the general understanding of smart-city development, providing policy recommendations for the future adaptation of the concept.

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